Providence City Oral History Project
Date: 8 June 2006
Location: Providence, UT
County: Cache
Tape Number: PCOH 2005 ARG-05
Interviewee(s): Opal Chugg
Interviewer: Rachel Gianni
Recording equipment & mic:
Sony TCM 200 DV/150, mic: Radio Shack 33-3013
Transcribing equipment: Panasonic VSC RR-830
Project editor: Lisa Duskin-Goede
General description: This is a topical transcription with some word for word
excerpts. Opal Chugg lives at 215 East 200 North, Provicence, Utah. Tape numbering (Log #) starts over on Side B. Note: Opal Chugg was not happy with her interview, and spent a considerable amount of time re-writing it. Included in this collection is a copy of the origanal transcript, a copy of her handwritten corrections and a transcript of her handwritten notes. We felt it would be too time-consuming to transcribe her corrections, and while the committee involved in this project felt her interview was fine, Opal would appreciate future users of the collection to read her corrected version and/or refer to her with any questions. Please see Appendix B of collection.
Settling in Providence
I was born in Hyrum, Utah, September the 27th, and I don’t remember the year. I met Marion Chugg on the 17th of July 1934. We were married May the 10th, 1939 in the Logan Temple. We spent two and a half weeks at the World’s Fair and all over California. That was our honeymoon. He sold a bunch of pigs to pay for our honeymoon. In those days it went a long ways and we had a great honeymoon for two and a half weeks, and I got home just before Memorial Day. I moved into this home at 211 East on Second North. We lived there until 1971 when we built this home and moved in. I wanted that home remodeled, and he said “I’m not remodeling this anymore. If you want a new home, you sell it.” In five days I sold it for cash to Brent Gledhill and his family. There’s been several owners since. Now Dee and Terri Barnes live there and Dee works for Providence City. We moved in here the day after Thanksgiving, 1971. This is where we have been. I have enjoyed living in Providence very much. Hyrum is home. We moved here to Providence on May the 19th. He had previously bought that home and remodeled it and he owned the property around it and that’s where this subdivision is built, back of me with nine homes because I sold the barnyard, the laundry sheds, the granaries, the calving sheds and the manure pile. There are nine homes back there now.
Junior Educational Club
I belonged to the JEC club (Junior Educational Club) from 1941 until they were all deceased. We met in each other’s home once a month, there was twelve of us. One month we would play pinnacle, one month we’d have a book review and another month, then we would have a lecture, someone would come in and lecture to us on a current problem of some kind. There were so many of our sons that went on a mission together that we had a little group that got together once a month and discussed what our missionaries were doing. When the boys were home from their missions, that was dissolved. The JEC club was still going until there was just four of us left. Then one, Grace Smith from Providence moved to a retirement center in Woodland, California, so that just left me and Vada Rinderknecht and Connie Hammond. Edith Theurer and I organized it in 1941.
Daughters of the Utah Pioneers
I have belonged to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers because I am one of the few remaining daughters of a native pioneer who came across the plains before the railroad. My father, Julius Sorensen from Copenhagen, Denmark, and his mother joined the Church in Denmark. She and her two young sons walked the plains with the ox teams, riding only when they had to. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and he moved to Hyrum. That’s where I originated from. I still belong to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. I just came from the June Jubilee now. It’s the greatest organization. We meet the third Thursday if every month. We used to meet in the homes. The last time I had it here we had twenty-six. Then we decided that so many of them wouldn’t have it and the members were getting older, so we’d go out for lunch, pay for our own and we have a wonderful history and a great lesson. The same lessons are given throughout the whole United States. It’s the same lesson, and wherever there’s an organization of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, then that’s it. They built the Salt Lake Daughters of the Utah Pioneers building many, many, many years ago. They were needing money. We didn’t have a lot of money because the Depression was on but we decided that we could pay $25.00 for me as a member and $25.00 for Marion’s mother who was a member and my mother. So, I have interest in that building to the tune of $75.00. It’s still standing. We belong to the Elizabeth Mathews camp. She was one of the first pioneers that came to this town. We have camps all over the valley. About a month ago, I was unaware that they were going to do this, they kept it a secret because I wouldn’t have been there otherwise, they honored me as one of the native daughters of the Utah Pioneers. They gave me a corsage and a darling hat, handmade. It’s beautiful. They honored me and Madeline Barlow. She was the archivist at the museum. We have a beautiful museum in Logan and I go there as a docent once a month. I only go once a month, that’s all I’ve got time for. It’s a beautiful place. We meet, have lunch, a history and the lesson. It’s a great organization but there’s not very many left in Cache Valley of the native daughters. My father had young ideas so that’s the reason that I’m here. We have two camps in Providence. I don’t know the other one. The name is the Spring Creek Camp. Ivan Christensen’s wife belongs to that. Ours is the original of the Utah Pioneers, the Elizabeth Mathews. I joined in 1956 because my mother-in-law was captain at the time and wanted me to join. After that there were twenty years that I was unable to attend the meetings because I worked in the day. Prior to that they had night meetings and I was able to attend those. For the years that I worked, I wasn’t able to come but now I go regularly. We had June Jubilees. All the camps get together at one place and they have a buffet lunch and a program. We’re ended until the third Thursday in September and then we start over again. They have a board meeting the second Tuesday of the month in Hyrum for the board. Then we meet as a camp. They’ve changed it from the third Thursdays to the third Monday because of people’s involvement and Temple work and things so we changed it to the third Monday. We have a great group of ladies, about 32.
Lion’s Club
My husband was a charter member of the Lion’s. He was president one term. They met every month. They did a lot of good and still are. They still have the breakfast and things you know about. They had a charter and I had to write the names of all the charter member on that. That’s hanging down in the City Offices now. There’s only about two or three left of that group. That’s many years ago. He was an active Lion and loved it. It gave him an out and I had my club night out. You know, you need diversion. You need to just each have something going for you.
Church callings
I’ve worked in the Church. I started out in Hyrum as a Sunday school teacher. Then when I came over here, I taught the Beehives, the MIA, the Gleaner Girls, the Junior girls and then worked in the Sunday school. I was secretary to the Sunday school for five years consecutive. I got along fine because of typing and all that stuff, it worked out well. Then the Stake presidency and the Sunday school presidency came to the ward and they wanted to talk to me and I didn’t want to talk to them. So I went around and got all the roll books and I went up in the top of the Old Rock Church and stayed there. Pretty soon, here came the bishop and he said, “The Stake presidency would like to talk to you.” And I said, “We’re not on speaking terms.” I went down and they asked me if I would be Stake Sunday school secretary. I was there for ten years consecutive. Some Sundays we had five meetings a day: prayer meeting, Sunday school, post meeting, classes, everything. I was in that for fifteen years. As secretary I had to keep track of the board members, where they went, what they visited, what they did. I had to keep track of all the people in the ward. My percentage of my ward members had to be exactly what the ward clerk was. We got together at the end of every month to see. We lost one member, we could not find it. It wasn’t on my roll. But he was here and his membership was still in the ward. It was most difficult to keep track of them all. Finally I did a little research and he was serving a prison term and I found him. He was a nice guy, he’s been in our home, he as every minute a gentleman. But that’s the person we lost, so that mine and Wilford Hanson’s were not identical. He was the ward clerk, but our figures had to match and so you couldn’t lose anyone. I had a report to make out with lots and lots of figure for eleven wards. There were eleven wards at that time in the Stake.
I’ve been in a couple of Stakes: Mount Logan Stake, Providence Stake and Providence Utah Stake. From there I was on the MIA Stake board for five years, a counselor in lesson material. I was in charge of the Young Men and Gleaner Girls of the Stake. We just had a real good time. Back then kids were close, there were no cars. We just had great things going on. I was there nearly five years and then my daughter contracted polio and I had to be released. It was a great five years. We had banquets and we visited all the wards and kept track of all the girls. But there wasn’t as much going on then, there weren’t as many activities. We had dances, picnics, outdoor activities of that kind. We always had a banquet in the old Hotel Eccles. We had their Young Men and Gleaner Girl dances and that time they didn’t dance with one person all night. It was a merry-mix and it was great.
After my husband’s death in ’82 they asked me if I would be the Compassionate Service visiting teaching leader for the Stake. That was a rewarding job. The ward Compassionate Service leaders and the visiting teachers would meet every month and have a meeting and a lesson. After so long the Church disbanded the Stake boards, but we were the last Stake board. That was a very choice calling. I gave a lesson and had input and ways to better do visiting teaching.
Then I was first counselor to Lucille Campbell in the Relief Society in the ward for five years. And then I was coordinator to the first Junior Sunday school with Beth Theurer,Thelma Hansen and myself. We stayed as coordinators for ten years. We had a beautiful junior Sunday school room down in the Old Rock Church. We financed ourselves with bake sales and things of that sort. We were the first ones, but after that they just had one coordinator, but there were three of us at first. We took turns taking charge. I taught Relief Society literary lesson with a lovely lady from Providence, Lillian Fuhriman. Every other month we took the lesson. At that time it was on the scriptures. It was very rewarding. She and I were in a number of years.
Old Rock Church
It was just a lovely Old Rock Church chapel. That’s where I first went to church, and all of my children went to church there. The Rock Church is very famous. My friend and I were in charge of the food the night that they were going to dedicate the monument down there, a beautiful monument with a bronze plaque. It was on an old wagon wheel. When it was sold, I was on that committee to sell that church house when it couldn’t be fixed, it wasn’t safe. We had that dedicated. Now they’ve taken the wagon wheel and all that away and put the plaque up on the Rock Church. That’s where I went to church until we built this one down here. We had Sunday school and we had sacrament meeting on Sunday and we had MIA on Tuesday. When I was in Hyrum we had choir practice every Thursday night, but they didn’t have that here. I was on the committee to sell the Old Rock Church. We sold it to Dennis Carlsen and he put in a fabric shop. I’m the only one left now on that committee. I have black and white picture of all of these.
Strawberries
I never attended a Strawberry day that I know of. I don’t know whether they were still having them. Strawberries were very prominent. Melvin Bitters and Joycelyn and Royal Gessel and others had strawberries.
Dances at church and the Pavilion
The Old Rock Church was very famous and we used to have dances there. Then we had dances in the Pavilion, that was across the street from the Old Rock Church. My boyfriend played in the orchestra, the “Toe Tappers.” It wasn’t from Providence, it was an out of town orchestra but he was from Hyrum. That was just for the MIA dances. When we couldn’t go into the Pavilion anymore, then we used to go out to the Providence Second Ward and dance in the basement of the old church out there on South Main. Other than that, I didn’t know much about the Pavilion. That was before I was married, that we’d come over here to dance.
Sauerkraut Days
I haven’t participated a lot in Sauerkraut Days. I like sauerkraut, we’ve had bazaars where sauerkraut was made. One night we served 1300. It’s gone down, down, down, now to where we don’t have them. All the food was homemade. Then when the FDA stepped in we couldn’t furnish our own beans or things like that. It had to be approved by the FDA. Turkeys, everything, so they’re all over.
Each organization in the ward had a booth. We had the junior Sunday school, Relief Society had their booth, Priesthood had theirs, Primary had the fishpond, Mutual had theirs. It was just a great event. We had them in the basement of the old school house until we couldn’t have them there any more and then we had them in the wards. But they were never as successful as they were as when they were in the old school. We had pastries and the Relief Society had pillow cases, bazaar items, aprons, all that sort of thing. Primary had the fishpond, but I don’t remember which organization had the sauerkraut but they made the sauerkraut here in Providence.
Those old Swiss ladies knew it the best. They could taste and tell just what that sauerkraut was like. It was famous. Some people would want to buy a case. We’d have two or three thousand cans but we couldn’t sell always a case, we’d have to divvy it out a little more. Dr. S.M. Budge, a prominent Logan doctor, came in and I was selling sauerkraut that night and he asked if he could have two cases. I said, “Oh, Dr. Budge, we can’t possibly let two cases go. We’ve got to let others. We’ll sell you one case and then you can buy a case of Saniflush, they do the same thing.” It was great.
They were very, very successful. We had the turkey and sauerkraut dinners. They have them in the town now and they don’t have roasted turkeys. The FDA won’t let them do it in the home and bring them in. I’ve been to one and I don’t like pressed turkey. Providence is known for its sauerkraut and people come from all over the valley and out of the valley for these turkey and sauerkraut dinners. They were very good.
Old German women in town
Eliza Leonhardt, Eliza Dattage, Louise Fuhriman, Lorel Leonhardt, there were so many of those older Swiss ladies. They were sweet little ladies… They were old to me in those days, but they were sweet as they could be. They talked Swiss and they were the best cooks in the town. They did the sauerkraut, but they could do anything. They could make “knee patches” which were cookies. They could make doughnuts, raspberry roly-polys. You name it, they could make anything. They were great quilters and great friends. I used to take them to the Temple on Fridays. We’d go at 11:00, it was a live session then, and I’d pick up these ladies then and go to the Temple and be back in time for when my kids came from school. It worked out beautifully. They were the oldest, beautiful people.
Walking to school
I went to school in Hyrum. We went to the Lincoln School. I had two perfect records there and a perfect record at high school. Each time I received a book for perfect attendance. It was fun. We walked to school. I walked nine blocks to South Cache High School, morning and night. There were no busses, very few cars, and we all walked. In the wintertime we’d freeze to death. There was a big store, Allen Mercantile in Hyrum and they had a big floor furnace. The manager was always there in the morning to stoke the furnace. We kids who lived up by the cemetery in Hyrum would all go down there and stand around that furnace because it was halfway and get warm and then go the rest of the way to South Cache High School. We could truck right along, coming home took a little less time.
Childhood games
We’d play “Run My Sheep Run.” One of us would stand up against a building or something and then they’d all go hide. We’d say “run my sheep run” and then when it was time to come and there were a few left, then we’d have to go and hunt them. Usually they would hide. “Blind Man’s Buff,” they’d put a blind around you and you’d have to guess who was in the room. I won’t tell you about “Post Office,” that was our own game. “Auntie I Over,” throwing the ball over the house. Catching it and throwing it back. And when you’d throw it you’d say, “Auntie I over,” and away we went. There were just all kinds of night games, wiener roasts, everything, it was great growing up in Hyrum. There were no cars, we stayed pretty much there. My kids rode the school bus from Providence to Hyrum but there was nothing like that then. That was quite a walk in those days. Sometimes we’d go three or four blocks on top of the snow. The snow was as high as the fence post and we could walk on top of the snow a long ways. It was fun.
Limestone quarry
My husband has a rock wagon and he had many teams of horses. There was a certain time of the day that they would haul the rock. They would hitch their horses up. They were tired in the morning, so they would just sit back in the wagon box and the horses would go on up to the quarry, follow one team up after the other. They didn’t all lie down and rest, some of them were driving them, but some of these teams knew just where to go up there. Then they would bring it down to the Amalgamated Sugar Company for the manufacturing of sugar or lime rock. He drove a rock wagon for a number of years for extra income. Then they would farm after.
Farming: cash crops, dairy and cattle
We called it “agri-business.” He farmed and worked hard. We had some property out on the River Heights Road and we owned a dry farm up there on the hill. For 35 years he hauled soil for roads and for homes, lawn soil for years and years and years. That kept us going. The crops didn’t harvest and we didn’t get our checks until fall. We didn’t have that much to live on. We had cows, herded the cows, lots of horses. We had a milk check come in every month. When the cows were dry and weren’t giving any milk, sometimes there was no income. None. We got along because we raised practically everything and we did our own cooking. Years ago we raised peas, beans, potatoes, corn, sugar beets. We owned a potato pit down to the sugar factory for a number of years. We were too small of an acreage so they took all of that away from us. Companies: Del Monte, Libby’s, Dole, big companies took it all away from us. We had no cash crops so then we went into cattle and cows. That’s why we had the barnyard and the feed yard. In the summer months, for I think three months, our cattle went up on the reserve. We paid permits to keep them up there. So, the last number of years after they took the small cash crops away then we had the milk cows and the cattle. We fed the cattle all winter and sold them in the spring to Ogden and Smithfield auction. The milk went to Cache Valley Dairy for many many years thats all we ever sold to. In the earlier days we had our own milk and we got our butter and our cheese delivered to us when they brought the milk cans back. They milked by hand. Towards the end we had milking machines.
Jobs through the years
When they called my son on a mission to South Africa, he was our only help. I had two girls and one boy. I told my husband, “If you’ll sell those magpie cows, I’ll go back to work.” So, I went back to work in 1962 for Farm Bureau Insurance and I stayed there twenty years. I was a secretary for the State and the Cache, keeping track of 1200 farmers and their insurance and their life insurance. We had a claims adjuster which was Jacob Fuhriman from our town. I worked with him. We had accidents all over, had to settle them, pay for whatever.
Going back, when I graduated from high school, I had a patch of beans, and the beans were supposed to pay for my school expenses. That year I was a senior at South Cache, a girl in our ward had been working extension service in Logan all her life, she never married, and she asked me if I’d like to come there and work, run off letters off the mimeograph, fold letters, get them ready to mail out. Just little things. I thought, “I can’t do that and leave my beans.” I had to pick my beans. My brother came up to me, and he said, “Op, you take that job and it will be a stepping stone for you. You can pick your beans when you come home from the office.”
Before I was married, I worked for seven years in the extension service. During that time I also worked at the University and also in the Controller’s Office on different jobs. I worked on government projects, different places, but it was all through the extension. Rural rehabilitation, the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Association).
Two years before my husband passed away he said, “We’re not going anywhere with you working. You just as well come home.” So, I came home. I was glad so we had time to go together and do things and he was gone in a couple of years. We had to work for what we had, we really did. We were married in the Depression. I said, “If you’ll sell the cows I’ll go back to work and I’ll keep that kid on a mission.” So I did and then I stayed and saw them all married and through school. It wasn’t just the two year mission, I stayed.
Raising children in Providence
It was easy, great raising kids in Providence. No problems. They had their 4-H, they took dancing and they took swimming lessons. We just got along fine. Every afternoon, some of my friends would meet me and we’d take our babies wheeling in baby buggies to each other’s place and get home in time to feed them and put them to bed again. It was a great time, but it was easy. Not like it is now. Luckily, I was very fortunate. I didn’t have any problems I couldn’t handle. They all turned out pretty good.
Friends
Edith Theurer, Vada Rinderknecht, Ruby Jensen, Grace Smith, Annabelle Fuhriman, Eulalia Stauffer, Carrie Stauffer, Zola Bringhurst, I can name all of them. Dora May Crabtree, Marge Frank. A lot of those people have moved away. We had good friends and these clubs kept us going. The night that I went to Club, Marion took over, and when he went to Lion’s Club I took over.
Businesses
Theurer’s Store, great store, they carried everything. We could buy wedding gifts there, yardage, groceries, meat. It was very convenient and a great store for us. Then there was a smaller store where the Pavilion and where Watkins printers used to be. That was run by Henry Watkins and his wife, called the Watkins Grocery. There was a lot of competition. They were smaller and just couldn’t make the go. The other store had more to offer. Small businesses being run out. They were great people. Then there was a blacksmith shop there run by Ross Pickett. Then his son Farrell Pickett up here runs the Pickett Welding. Ross passed away and then his son didn’t stay there very long. That was down there across the street from the Rock Church. It was a church for a while, some kind of a ministry. There as the two stores and then we had a post office. Eunice Clawson was the postmistress when I first knew her. And then Christina Frank was one. Next door to the post office was the barber shop. Gene Mathews was the barber. I remember that because we used to take our son there to get his hair cut. Theurer’s store was very good and we could buy anything there. We could walk to the store and carry our groceries home. We had a car, but a lot of times we’d wheel our kids down there and wheel them home. We were self-entertained.
Family time
We were a family and we stayed together as a family. Family night was every night then. Family Home Evening wasn’t in way back then, but when I lived in Hyrum, every night was family night. We had our evening meal, we stayed around the old wood coal burning stove, we had our games, we had our music, we made our own way. The kids had their friends, we had our chores to do. It was togetherness. It wasn’t a 50/50 deal, it was 100%. We got along and I’ve had a good life.
Edgewood Hall
Edgewood Hall was a beautiful place. It was owned by Joseph Smith and he has one daughter still living and I talked to her Monday. Sunny and Annabelle and Judy have passed away but I talked to Pat and we reminisced about that. There was a big fire in that home on Labor Day night. There was a special orchestra from Logan, so all of us with our dates were going to the dance because it was a special orchestra that had been brought in. This fire up at Edgewood Hall was huge. It lit up the whole hill, all along there. That was all produce and fruit farms. So that night that it burned, a bunch of us got up and got into the watermelon patch and had watermelon that night by the light of the fire.
Soil business
We owned the soil banks up here. 35 years he hauled the soil. We owned 87 and half acres up there. He employed anybody we could get. Mainly teenage boys. No one worked year round except we did it, the girls and Brent, my oldest son, they ran the farm. Then we’d hire Mexicans to come in and pick up the potatoes. We hauled the peas to the vinery in big rack-like hay racks and we harvested the sugar beets. They plowed them up and we’d top them and we’d throw them in the boxes and we took them to the sugar factory. The soil is what kept us going.
Lions Club and Providence Lane
The Lions Club did a lot. There used to be a drop off on both sides of the Providence Lane. The year that my husband was president, all the Lions helped. There was Ron Campbell and Bill Mathews, ran a back hoe and my husband and all the Lions and they closed in the north side of the Lane then. They never did the other side because there was no one to do it. The Lions did that. I can’t remember the years, we didn’t keep track, we just did them. All three of them are gone now. Those three really used their tractors and things. The other Lions helped do other work.
Water shares
I have 35 and a half shares in Providence and Logan. There is only one other person that has that many, Todd Weston. The two of us own most of the shares there. We’re working on it now to see if we can get some kind of a system because the old system is breaking down. So, they’re trying to get a grant that will help us in some way. Otherwise it will cost us thousands of dollars. Right now my water taxes on Providence Logan is $1620 a year. That’s what I have to pay as taxes. Then Spring Creek, I have 25 shares. That bill is about $375 or $400. But Providence Logan goes both ways and that’s a lot of taxes, plus your other taxes. I rent the farm out to a very good farmer, Roy Ropelato from Millville and he’s doing a nice job. He uses the water and they still flood. Then we have an underground water system where it comes up in high rises and waters.
Irrigating
Irrigating was tough. You had to take the water every seven or eight days and have it for three or four days. Working out in the sun and working out in the rows of the corn and potatoes and beets. I was out there as much as I could be. I drove the little Ford tractor to rake the hay and we’d help move pipe. My kids all helped to move the pipe to run the sprinkling systems. We picked the corn. We didn’t pick the peas. They cut those with the mower and loaded them. We would top the beets and throw them in the wagon to go down to the sugar factory. The corn was picked and hauled and sent to Del Monte in Smithfield. We would pick it and then drive there at night to have it unloaded. We were coming home, 10:00, 11:00, midnight to bring the empty trucks back. My husband raised cattle and sold them usually at the Smithfield auction or Ogden. He went one Monday out of the month
Quarry
I had a brother-in-law and his friend who used to have to break the big rocks. They had a grill and they had to stand there with a sledgehammer and break it up into smaller pieces. They’re all gone now, it killed them.
Polygamy
I didn’t live in polygamy, nor did my parents. I’m not in favor of it. I wouldn’t do it if they told me to. I would disobey.
Before electricity
I don’t remember when electricity came to town. We had lamps. We did the laundry with a hand-turned washing machine. We kids used to take turns turning it. So many loads of wash and then another one. In my family there was seven of us. They weren’t all home at the same time but we took turns. As one grew up we took over. Mother kept the chimneys real clean and we sat around the table at night and either played games or we had our studies. We studied. It isn’t like they have it today. We earned our education. We didn’t have computers, we didn’t have any of those things.
Clothing
Mother sewed the simple things. Other than that she had a friend that did all of our sewing for us. We didn’t have a lot of clothes but we took care of what we had. We had a Sunday dress and when we’d come home from our meetings on Sunday we changed into something else. We didn’t wear pants, I wore overalls to work for other people on their farms, picking strawberries and dewberries and apples and peaches. We always wore boys overalls. We didn’t have jeans or anything like that.
The outhouse
We didn’t have indoor plumbing, we had the outhouse. We called it the “just outhouse.” It was always away from the home. It was kept very clean. When I moved to Providence we had electricity, we had plumbing, we had everything. But we didn’t have it when we were growing up in the farm in Hyrum. That’s many years ago.
Farm machinery
We didn’t have an automobile for a long time. But we’ve always had automobiles here. We went together five years and he always had a new car and we’ve had cars ever since. Trucks, cars, tractors, all kinds of farm machinery we’ve had. We still have our tractors and things back here. He had a loader, back hoe. One back hoe would cost between $35-38,000. It would take a long time to pay that off but we worked at it and we have never wanted for anything. We had all we could eat and all we could wear and we made our own fun. But times have changed. I’m living it up now.
Coal and wood
Theurer’s used to have a coal yard down where they used to have the old Interurban car station. Everybody bought their coal down there. They would always go to the canyons and get their wood out. We had wood burning stoves over there.
First electric stove
My first electric stove was in 1946. I had a good looking range in the first place. Somebody wanted that and we gave it away and I was always sorry. I wish I would have kept it because it was nice. The reason I remember that was ’46 was because I heated my daughter’s first bottle on that stove, and she was born in ’46. That I do remember.
Activities as a child
You could walk anywhere, you knew everybody. Everybody was friendly, they looked out for each other. The kids had their usual night games. They had their tricky ones too. On Halloween, if there was a load of sugar beets, sitting there waiting to be taken to the sugar company in the morning, there were enough kids in town that they could push that wagon clear down the street. They tipped over many outhouses. That was the thing to do then. Not for me, but the kids in town. They had their times, they had their meetings, they had their scout work, their 4-H work. We did it all.
Conclusion
I would like it to be remembered the years that I first came here. Just easy, laid back but hard work. There was togetherness. Everybody knew everyone. There was only two wards. We just knew everybody. Very, very friendly. It wasn’t built up like it is now. I like it the way it is now because I like progress, but I liked it back like when my kids were little. They were the best days. It was good. I like Providence, I really do. It’s a nice town.
Note from interviewer: (As part of the interview, we looked at photographs of celebrations, DUP, charter members of club.)
End of interview